Pet peeves

October 15, 2013

In their Don Quixote-like pursuit of their distorted view of traffic law enforcement, our
police departments continue to find creative new ways to catch us
driving at speeds our road networks have obviously been designed to
handle.

I
drove by a classic radar fishing hole the other day - Eglinton Avenue
westbound approaching Leslie.

Exactly
the sort of high-risk area the police are supposed to target - there
isn't a road, a store, a school, a business, a driveway, a
pedestrian, for kilometers.

Visibility is such that you can see
until next Tuesday.

But
never mind - lots of people going above the artificially low 60 km/h limit; lots of
tickets.

The
radar/laser unit was mounted on a tripod, as it often is.

But
what caught my eye was the Ford Explorer parked beside it, wherein I presume the
operators of said device were sitting.

It was painted Metro Toronto Police white, with
red and blue graphics.

But
it was labelled "Metro Toronto Police Dog Service".

What?

If
they catch a perp, they send a dog after him?

Can't you just imagine driving along, and a pooch runs up beside you,
indicating you should pull over?

October 10, 2013

And while fresh air is supposed to be good for your health, I'm afraid some of those bike helmets they wear may allow too much sun to soak into their brains.

Because Cycle Toronto, a group of two-wheel enthusiasts, is now agitating to have bike lanes installed on Yonge Street all the way from Steeles Avenue right down to The Star building at Number One Yonge.

I guess those tens of thousands of subway riders just can't wait to, paraphrasing the immortal words of Freddie Mercury of Queen, "Get on their bikes and ride!"

Did we learn nothing from the recent Jarvis Street fiasco?

In any city, heading towards the water (in our case, Lake Ontario) is generally all downhill.

But Toronto is a city of ravines.

So, when they get to the 401 on their way downtown, they'll head down into Hogg's Hollow (at, literally, break-neck speed - I once personally witnessed a cyclist break his neck on Yonge Street), right past the former Jolly Miller Tavern (now just "The Miller Tavern"), up the hill to the former 'City Limits', minor undulations to Davisville, down past Mount Pleasant Cemetery, up to St. Clair, down again towards Rosedale, up to Bloor, then it's pretty much coast to the lake.

Coming home?

Er, different story.

Uphill pretty much all the way. Just what you need after a hard day at the office.

It would take hours each way - even if you only rode for a portion of it.

And the danger - admittedly from the cars, but it's the cyclists who get run over - is ever-present.

And in case we forget - as we all seem to do - here's roughly what it will look like in February:

Or maybe this:

I couldn't find a picture of Hogg's Hollow in winter, but I'm sure you get my 'drift' ho ho ho...

I own a bike. I used to ride from my house in Leaside to work when I taught summer courses at Ryerson.

My kids all own - and - ride bikes.

But these cyclists can't seem to understand that Toronto is not and never will be Amsterdam or Copenhagen.

It is not flat; it is not warmed by the Gulf Stream.

Toronto is not even Montreal, which admittedly has even worse weather than we do.

But Montreal is also nowhere near as spread out as Toronto is, thanks to our ridiculous real estate prices. Anyone who can afford to live close enough to where they work probably doesn't even need a job to ride to.

As I have said many times, it simply makes less-than-zero sense to dedicate a significant portion of our limited road space to a handful of people who will not even utilize it for several months of the year.

And don't get me started on that unbelievable cost to install showers at City Hall to accommodate the one or two councillors who choose to ride to work.

But - SPOILER ALERT!!! - you must know that I of all people would hardly include it in my blog if the roundabouts didn't win...

In this instance, they were measuring 'efficiency' only from a traffic-flow perspective - how many cars get through an intersection in a given time period.

They did not factor in safety - you have to work pretty hard to get into a Tee-bone or head-on crash in a roundabout, and Waterloo Region has recorded as many as 70 percent fewer collisions in roundabout intersections compared to stop signs; or fuel efficiency - stopping, idling and re-starting are the three of the worst things your car can do to waste fuel, and they're all part and parcel of a stop sign.

Roundabouts are s-l-o-w-l-y making their way into the consciousness of traffic planners in some North American municipalities.

Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve for drivers unfamiliar with the concept.

But if ROW (Rest Of World) can figure them out, surely we can too.

My question, as it has been since my first visit to Europe many years ago: What's it going to take to make it the 'default option' for ALL intersections here?

On our way to the Leafs' season opener against the hated Senators Saturday night (the parade route IS planned...) my friend Arn took this photo out the window of the Porsche Cayman I was driving at the time.

The pic is a bit dim - it was twilight, the sign is under the Gardiner Depressway, and the weeds are obscuring it a little.

But if you look closely, you can see that the "Expected Completion" date is December 2012.

Just a reminder - that hockey game we were going to was October 6, 2013.

October 06, 2013

It
has taken a little longer for me to have been made Supreme Ruler of the
Universe than (a) I had imagined, and (b) than it should have.

Things
would be so much easier for everyone!

The
agenda remains pretty much as it always has been - the right lane can never
disappear; left-lane bandits go straight to their own special corner
of hell without having to die first; electronics manufacturers will
have to come up with one plug, one voltage, one polarity - I care not
which any of them are, but one of each will do, thank you very much.

There's
a new item marching its way towards the top of that agenda - run-flat
tires will be banned.

They're
marginally acceptable in a car with sporty intentions - a Mini, for
example.

But
for a luxury car intended to provide a comfortable ride - well, at
least so far, suspension engineers have been unable to compensate for
tire sidewalls which are stiff enough to support the car if the tire
loses its air.

Either
the ride is unacceptably harsh, and/or they soften the springs to
mitigate the effect, which means handling suffers too.

Why
do car makers do this?

Weight.

A
spare tire weighs a lot; its elimination results in a fractional
improvement in fuel consumption - nowhere big enough that you as an
individual customer could ever detect it, but when added up over tens
of thousands of cars can help the manufacturer attain
government-mandated sales-weighted fuel consumption targets.

A
pox on all of their houses.

Governments
- drop these stupid targets, raise the price of fuel (I know, I know
- but you'll save money in the long run), and let the market sort it
out.

Car
makers - put a proper spare tire in the car.

Tire
makers - give up the whole concept, and let's have cars that ride and
handle better.

September 13, 2013

Mind you, if you can't spot a Ford Crown Victoria with fat tires, painted hubcaps, lowered suspension and a big ol' anti-roll bar hanging down below the diff, you probably deserve to get cuaght, even if it is painted plain black - you just aren't paying enough attention.

I did see a O.P.P Crown Vicky a couple of months ago with matte-black lettering on the shiny black paint - actually looked kind of cool, like those new B. C. Lions football jerseys.

There has been a tan/light brown/Sonoma Saddle Firefight/whatever-they-call-that-colour Chevy Tahoe SUV floating around - I see it on the 401 west of the city, because that's where I live and drive; it may be more wide-ranging than that.

That's pretty sneaky.

But the sneakiest I ever saw was just a few days ago - a full-size GM Van. I couldn't tell from a quick glance whether it was branded as a Chevy Express or a GMC Savana - like Kia's Sorento, deliberately, it would appear, spelled incorrectly, unless they're talking about a town in Madagascar, there's two 'n's in Savanna.

And an 'h' at the end if you're talking about a town in Georgia.

I digress...

It was the long wheelbase model, windows in the sides, sort of like the one over there to the right, except the one I saw was painted a nice dull gray.

But the operators had pulled someone over, and the little red and blue lights embedded in the grille and rear end were flashing merrily away.

Now, that IS sneaky.

I just hope against hope it was for a real driving infraction, and not for just another speeding ticket.

Surely we all know by now that speed limits are pointless - other than in the 'demerit point' sense... - and the enforcement thereof even more so?

August 05, 2013

Traffic was so bad on opening day last week that the OPP had to shut down the Trafalgar Road exit from the westbound 401 because it was blocking the highway.

From the east, it was stop-and-go from as far away as Mavis Road.

Traffic eastbound was also backed up west of Highway 25.

Not that there were that many cars exiting from eastbound 401. But if there's a traffic jam, well, you DO have to slow down to take a look, right?

(HINT: WRONG!)

Here's what it looked like Sunday afternoon, courtesy of the SatNav system in the Chevy Impala which shows traffic congestion in red:

Might be a bit hard to make out. Maybe there's a way to blow the photo up on your screen?

Anyway, I couldn't figure out how to have the SatNav system NOT show that address "8th Line Milton" on the map. But where those two red lines meet, that's Trafalgar Road. Steeles is a titch north of that (up and a shade to the left); the mall is on the south-east corner of Trafalgar and Steeles.

You can see that the 401 is essentially blocked in both directions.

The red line heading straight off the top is westbound 407 - it too is blocked. Imagine having paid twelve bucks to ride the 407 - kinda cuts into the 'Premium Outlets' savings, doesn't it?

Worse still of course if you don't give a damn about Manolo Blahniks or anything else they sell there. You just want to get to work, get home, get to the airport, get to the hospital.

But you can't, thanks to this wonder of modern retailing.

What - has nobody ever heard of Amazon.com? The days of Big Box stores and Outlet Malls are OVER, people.

Certainly, people who live in this area (like me - aw, you guessed...) wish this thing had never crossed anybody's mind.

They claim to have 2,300 parking spaces. What they need is their own exit from the 401 so customers could get to those spaces.

Presumably when the thrill wears off, traffic will return to something closer to normal.

But until this thing goes bankrupt - it won't be a moment too soon - I guess we're stuck with it.

We locals at least know a few ways around this intersection. You'd better fire up your SatNav to figure out a bypass too.

Oh by the way, I don't even know if you can get Manolo Blahniks at this place. Do I get any brownie points for even knowing what Manolo Blahniks are?